


are you yet here with me?

by caeliste (fictitiousregrets)



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 09:41:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13679121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictitiousregrets/pseuds/caeliste
Summary: The night Lem King ran from the Archives, he left his own violin, Devar, and some poetry behind.





	are you yet here with me?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aubades](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aubades/gifts).



> happy valentine's day dora!! here's some very-nearly-canon-compliant lem/devar feat. tiny lem poems and also devar being too good for him. <3

The night Lem King ran from the Archives, an ill-gotten violin in his guilty hands, Devar was dealing with pre-Erasure era literature. It was something Devar had been looking forward to for weeks; filing and cataloguing the books always allowed him to get a closer look at them. He didn’t want to get it over and done with all at once, so he told his immediate supervisor that it might take a week or two due to handling the literature with care.

    Yeah, he could have shifted the pattern to make sure none of the books would fall apart as he moved them around, reshelving them after writing down the contents of each so he could do this quickly, but what was the beauty in that? Any good reader knew that reading an old book was about holding it like it would die in your hands at any second, which felt dangerous in a very small way.

    He had just finished skimming something called _Treatise on the Effects of Reconfiguration on the Underground_ , and the contents rolled around in his head meaninglessly as he went to go find Lem. If anyone would be able to help him parse whatever was in there, it would be Lem, who could find meaning in anything.

    The halls were mostly empty, but that was the best part of working so late at night; most were either finishing up paperwork in the central building, working on other projects, or asleep in their beds. Lem usually stayed up late writing songs he would never sing, or quietly dragging an overworn bow across rosin-dusted strings. Devar always leaned against his door, ear pressed gently to it, when Lem was practicing. A violin played badly felt like nails on a chalkboard; a violin played well was a soft taffy, and Lem nearly always played well.

    But there were no notes coming from his room that night, no soft taffy melodies trailing away into the dead halls of the Archives, so Devar knocked. He waited a bit, but there was nothing.

    Devar knocked again, more insistently. Lem always answered after that, but not this time. He tried the doorknob, and when it gave, he was prepared to lecture Lem or to make a joke about how they wouldn’t be friends anymore if he wasn’t gonna answer his door, but as he walked into the room, there was no Lem to lecture or make jokes at.

    The sight made Devar rest his hand on the doorknob a little while longer, just kind of trying to figure out what was happening. Lem never left his door unlocked while he was out. Everything was neat and put in its place, almost sparsely so. The bed was made. His violin was hung up--and that was weird, because if Lem was gone, his violin should have been too. Was he kidnapped? The room wasn’t ransacked, no sign of a struggle. There was a single book on his desk, closed.

    Knowing the Archives, if he reported that Lem King was missing, it would take 5-10 business days for anything to go through, and then after that, Lem was an adult. He could have just gone somewhere, as unlikely as it would be. Gone somewhere without his violin--bullshit. Lem wouldn’t have gone anywhere without that violin. He loved that violin.

    Devar slowly approached the book on Lem’s desk. _An Incomplete Geology of Hieron_. He flipped through it, but the only thing useful in it was a very crude rendition of what the continent looked like. Not that Devar would know what the continent looked like, but the lines were… strange and sketchy. As if the cartographer wasn’t sure the land would look like this forever.

    He put the book down and spotted a crumpled piece of paper on the floor by the full-up wastebasket. Leaning down, Devar picked up the paper and uncrumpled it, smoothing it out on the desk.

 

    _Devar-_

_I have done a very bad thing._

 

The next few lines were scribbled through; illegible. Devar bit his lip. What did Lem _do_? What could he possibly have done that would make him leave without saying goodbye? He hesitated, and then he dug through the wastebasket. He wouldn’t normally do this, but… something was eating at him about this whole thing. It felt wrong, like a seed planted in the most optimal conditions that wouldn’t grow. Something was wrong with the core of it.

    “What the hell did you do now, Lem?” he muttered, smoothing out another piece of paper. This one just had notes on it. Musical notes. Devar put that one on top of the unsent letter. The next one was a journal entry, mostly blacked out with ink. Devar couldn’t get anything from that one except a line that said “I don’t know how to be in the outside world,” and another that said, “I wish I didn’t have to leave him.”

    Devar tried not to interrogate that last one too closely as he pulled up another paper, half-clearing the wastebasket.

 

_You, a part of this lightless place_

_Light on your eyes, on the lids, your lips_

_This tedious place that bore us both to tears_

_Regret the pitch-soaked night in my heart_

_The moonless night, dear reader_

_As it stands, motionless, lacking you._

 

There were words completely inked out here and there, little aggravated notes in the margins that felt increasingly more agitated. Lem usually didn’t have trouble writing poetry.

 

_A pattern folds beneath the winds_

_Our hands collide to shift this world_

_Every touch a quiet ask_

_Are you yet here with me?_

_Then it all snaps into place_

_I see your face, your grace, no trace_

_No chance for my hand to touch yours again_

_No chance_

 

He skipped a few lines and then wrote, in the tiniest handwriting, _I’m sorry, Devar._

Devar felt like he’d never left the lot with the pre-Erasure books in it, because none of this made any sense. Why would he go? Where would he go? Why wouldn’t he leave Devar anything, any kind of note? Devar looked at the notes and then took the whole wastebasket out of Lem’s room, marching straight to his own room.

    As he fed every single piece of paper into the fire, he hoped only that this would give Lem time. Wherever he was going, if he could only have time, that would be fine. He had done something that had made him afraid to even leave a note with Devar, and that was some shit, huh.

    With everything burned, Devar put the wastebasket beneath his, and went out into the hallway.

    Morbash was outside.

    “Have you seen Lem King?” he asked, a bite in the question.

    “Uh, no. Why?”

    Morbash swore. “He stole something from the Archives. Something very important.”

    Oh, _hell_. “Haven’t seen him, man. Sorry. Have a good night.” Devar gave him a tiny wave, and Morbash only growled and stalked away.

    He closed the door and then put his back against it and slid down to the floor. He reached into his pocket for the poetry and stared at it. He hadn’t been able to feed this one to the fire. It was the only apology he was ever going to get from Lem, and the only proof Devar had that Lem had loved him. It just hadn’t been enough for him to ask Devar to come with him.

    But if he could--as much as he could--he would slow them down. Devar could be part of the team going after him. They didn’t have to catch him right away.

 

_Every touch a quiet ask_

_Are you yet here with me?_

 

    He would be. Eventually, he would be.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not very good at poetry, and i'm definitely not as good as jack, but i tried!! there it is, the v-day poetry. find me on twitter [@caeliste](https://twitter.com/caeliste/)


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